Flightless Dreams and Dark Humour of a Post-W.orld

George W. Bush cartoon with international justice symbol by Galehr

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." — George W. Bush, LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000 (BUSHISM)

I happened to have spent my entire primary and post-secondary education in America during Bush W's regime. My freshman year in High School started with 9/11, and by 2007, I fled to Cairo, Egypt, having had just quite enough of American life under Bush W. In the course of those seven fateful years, I lost a lot of hope in all political righteousness, voting and demonstration included. Our world will never be the same. 

________

Departing from the downtown train, a friend blanks off in another direction, holding her pistol and handing one to my wife. She’s gone to shoot two of my childhood friends. “I’ll only kill one,” she says. All the while, I feel a similar fate between my wife and I. 

One of Four Freedoms Murals by Norman Rockwell

Entering an emptied church in a historic neighborhood, I kneel down on unfinished concrete flooring, bare as my back as I lift my shirt. My wife then raises her pistol and commences to shoot me straight through above my stomach, below my lungs, a perfect shot, just so much that I’ll survive while experiencing the bitter pain of the act and my coursing blood. As we exit the building room, outside on the street corner, our friend rushes over, hiding her pistol in a bag. 

La Chapelle de La Madeleine à Malestroit by Alexandre Bloch

At my feet, I see a broken skull. I can see the smile of my childhood friend eerily emanating from the skinless mouth. Supposedly, the other under our friend’s thumb, my other childhood friend, got away like me, shot clean through the back. 

________

Moment's seasonal greeting, here in Virginia the human weather anticipates unprecedented climactic shift. We are aware, N. Americans, ready? He closes, "I'll be home for Christmas."

- excerpt from "The Pleasant Man"

In The Burning Memory of the Thousand-Dreamt Rimbaud

"montage en rouge: Arthur Rimbaud et éruption volcanique" by PRA

“A thousand Dreams within me softly burn” 

― Arthur Rimbaud

In the spirit of dream interpretation, I endeavour a creative interpretation of Rimbaud's oft-quoted line. All know the saying, "a picture is a thousand words" refers to the ability of the human eye to perceive new realities through the image, to a mode of internal perception awakening Dream, Realization, Insight, Beauty & Truth. Taking into consideration the outlandish tragedy of Rimbaud's life I would wonder to suggest that "softly burn" is an allegory on the fleeting nature of existence, which dream-like, escapes as a softly burning wick, where the wick is the body, tormented by the passing of life, in pain, and at once when life is realized as a dream, that passing burn is soft. Memories, awakenings, visions, are of those thousand dream-images through which the mind of the poet-seer burns, within. 

For a worthwhile initiation into another living mind revisiting this quote, please explore THE DREAMING, full of gorgeous mystical dream-mind renderings from the Yukon and beyond

________

The Hindu temple receives a multitude of bodies. Coffins too small for the eye bedeck the well-draped floor. Exotic designs move the carpeting fur under our crossed legs as we admonish the tragedy of a younger generation lost to the violent wave of an incredulous doom. The air is blameless while heavy with the intensity of childless mourning. I visit many coffins, pressing my hand over their delicately sheathed frames, wondering about the unwilling instant of realizing early death at hand. Luxurious instrumentation lightly carries our tears to the sky with a playful tabla swing, impassioned, vibrating the moment’s curse into a blessing of mysterious, celestial hosts. We supplicate for the presence of extra-human understanding.

The demons return to the doorstep of the temple. A slew of bodies fall limp to the floor, blood gushes, filling the red and gold henna-flavored carpet with monochromatic travesty. I hide myself in the ceiling. I can hear the marauders bellowing hotly underneath. Am I the sole survivor? The panicking sets in when bullets and swords pierce through the unprotected foam insulation, serving as a ceiling in between the stone encasing stone structure. The murderers smash idols and burn the priests’ fabrics. Then, they notice me. My heart shakes like a rattlesnake in a rib cage. Gently lowered by the facetious grin of a gangster, I retain my pride. Led to the doorway after bitter interrogation, I am let off, grieving now for the un-mourned, and un-passed, those whose deaths remained undreamt and survive with the turning flesh of burning memory.

_______

Temple

"To dream about a temple represents a need to be appreciated by those you love." (iDream)

_______

she, a mother-in-law, struck a few chords after work and fled to his new apt.
clean and unused, they spread genital juices all over the face of the linoleum floor,
not asking lawyers how to clean it up, they left it for dead
& fled the crime scene to her stepsister's house
where they indulged in mushroom chocolates
& fled the known universe

now legally insane, they saw themselves all perfectly unfit for more
in their mentally unbalanced state, slept soundlessly on the floor,
only he had a dream, that he was back in his home country,
though living on the border, officially, since 3,
& saw a mythical beast riding high in the military fly zone
just before the horizon, not a dragon, nor bird of sorts,
a great golden rabbit appeared, star-cast and beaten from eggshell glory

the profound gaze sent him into a subconscious stupor,
an eyes-glazed reverence serenaded his being with lightly caressing gusts
& breezes echoed sweetly from each celestial hop, the rabbit,
suddenly frozen in space
moved its ears at a lightning pace, and the resounding effect, a divine music
so piercing as to exhale a skeletal release from all human friction,
that generous, breathtaking gorge of sound streamed and crashed into depths unknown
with a lightness and eager wish for interdependent eternity

- excerpt from "how in the year of the rabbit, the pure still need things"

Poet-Doctor, Drugs and Dreams Are Your Friend

Le Rêve du docteur by Albrecht Dürer

"I never dream. When you’re psychotic, you don’t dream. Mugwort is an herb you can pick up at any local herbal shop. Although the tea is mildly poisonous, it can be drunk. Mugwort tea induces vivid, memorable dreams. Dreaming makes me feel normal. I feel connected with everyone through dreaming."

- from a conversation with a local poet and friend, David Rhoads

_______

Night in the suburbs, I jangle out onto the main road in a banged up old Volvo. The car is full of assorted items, the floors are mostly covered in piles of junk and the like. As I step on the gas, I see I’m driving unusually fast, though only about five mph above the speed limit. My lights are never working fine; I’m usually pulled over every time a cruiser spots me. 

In a shadowy nook, I see the dimmed lights of police, out for the catch. As I approach, the lights whir and sound. Still, I am in disbelief. “Again!” They must know me well by now. The cop who stops me perks with dissatisfied boredom as she clambers around awkwardly in the car for an extended time. My friend and I stand outside the car, weary and stung with silent cursing. Then, the overweight female cop raises one finger; it is covered with a green dust in the blaring flashlight. 

She inspects the dust carefully before swiftly grabbing my arms and locking them in a tight hold. “I’ve found marijuana in your car, you are under arrest!” I fight with murderous intensity. “What! All you found was a fingertip swipe of dust!” I am in awe of the local law’s asinine decision-making. As I squirm in contempt, defiant with unforgiving intensity, the lady cop calls for backup. 

In a matter of seconds, an SUV pulls up ahead of the first cruiser with two large, burly officers emerging in a torrent of violent forewarning. They attempt to handcuff me with riot strength, steaming in a haze of purposeless might. I loosen myself easily and struggle with unmatched will. Suddenly, I’m thrown back ten feet with a blood concussion, face puffed with blood, roughed up interminably by a single blow. 

On my way from a police car onto the steps of the police station and courthouse, I regain consciousness. A man on the sidewalk recognizes me. “Remember your permanent residency application!” he advises warmly. I am put before an authoritative lawman. I state my case. “Sir, this is an unjust conviction, I am on my way to gaining residency to live with my wife, this will put me under, don’t let a finger swipe of dust ruin this man’s life.” He takes pity on me. 

Later, I go on to liberate the entire northeast of North America from its bitter criminalization of personal marijuana use.

______

Drugs
"The interpretation of drugs in your dreams depends on the relationship you have with the drugs in your daily life and if they are doctor prescribed or not...The drugs could be suggesting a need for healing and getting in balance. Your unconscious mind may be suggesting outrageous things in hopes that you get the message to 'have fun, dream dreams, and get out of your own head!' Please keep in mind that the purpose of dreams is to raise our consciousness and to assist us in having better lives." (iDream)

______

"preposterous!"
said the proud visiting Englishman
in dismay,
"the army and police force will be trained
by the crown herself,
and no undue report will become of any loyal
to the blank calm
that befuddles our propaganda-fed livestock population"

- excerpt from "preposterous!"

Experiments With Conventional Dream Definition

"We believe warmth and brightness will return and renew all of the hopes of men. NO!!!"

"Let me put it this way, I don't think there's a deep concern about anything. I think there's a lot of, you know, there's sort of passing interest in things, but there's no real concern. It's doesn't mean it's a matter of conviction, again. People seem unwilling to become involved in anything. I mean, really."

Also by Arthur Lipsett, "[Free Fall] evokes a surrealist dream of our fall from grace into banality." (NFB)

___________

It’s the Floridian humidity. The silent pavement provides a buffer zone between the sweating plants and the lowering sky. Small mammals scurry mindfully in the thick brush beside these manicured pathways. A massive dome appears on our way. The recently past dusk threw a scintillating crepuscular finitude over the incredible structure. White-mounded, of chalky substance, the mound invited us with an easily accessible entranceway. An aqueous blue light hovers in a pallid mist throughout the sporadic lighting of a tunnel system. Globular shadows bloom over the fear-cast hideaway. “The deeper we press on, the more sheltered are the animals who dwell inside,” I peer into a subterranean passage, meant for a nocturnal fox. I turn back.

The next day, in the sweltering heat, I sit languorous with café atop a balconied precipice in an inner city restaurant. The muddied roads spell social friction as two heated rough bands of youth face off. The attitude about is apathetic, as resting feet mosey in careless to the disaffected gorge of violence in our immediate vicinity. I watch restlessly, bitter with remorse as the puffed chests of the youths splinter with strangled breath under their pitiful guise of torn flesh and mangled bones.

In the café, my wayward attention darts in the direction of a radiant presence. A world-class musician empties bellies of laughter and rays of his smiling countenance in all directions, especially meeting my eyes with his. We become acquainted. Over tea, he invites me to a concert of his in the evening. The concert hall is bedecked with the stylish wonders of the epoch. The bountiful core of human opulence shines in its full magnificence as the musician, a percussionist, gently plays a twin-headed gourd with a masterful split-finger technique, similar to the way one would play a hadgini. Bursts of mountainous excitement turn the crowd inside their beatific lives to a place more common to all. 

_________

Fox

"To dream of chasing a fox, denotes that you are engaging in doubtful speculations and risky love affairs." (iDream)

_________

The snowball effect and the end of humanity…

Pacification.
Air dead.
Noxious and looming.
Distracted meds fielding stringent commentary.

Of wrong.

Misinformed delusion.
Gray-haired wisdom.
Bold boom music.
Drunk on sleep.
Feeding extreme weak binge.

Insane night.

Wheeling through migrations
Globalizing responsibility.

For no one.

Healing engrossed savages
Inviolate demise.
Undone law.

Ruin.

Demeaned personality
Locked unmovable
Warm concrete.

Derailed western dream.

920pm. Feb 18. 10’

L.A., caged windowed building, pesto pasta and one cigarette